Neighbors vow to rebuild fire-damaged Indian Boundary Park fieldhouse

A firefighter is removed from the scene of an extra-alarm blaze at a historic Chicago Park District fieldhouse in the 2500 block of West Lunt Avenue in the Rogers Park neighborhood.

A firefighter is removed from the scene of an extra-alarm blaze at a historic Chicago Park District fieldhouse in the 2500 block of West Lunt Avenue in the Rogers Park neighborhood. (Ken Carl, for the Tribune)

Jonathon BullingtonTribune reporter

Neighbors of Chicago’s Indian Boundary Park vowed to rebuild early Sunday evening after an extra-alarm blaze severely damaged the park’s landmark fieldhouse.

Firefighters were called about 12:06 p.m. Sunday to the fieldhouse, located in the 2400 block of West Lunt Avenue in the Rogers Park neighborhood.

The fire, which appeared to start in the upper level, caused the roof to collapse and sent two firefighters to St. Francis Hospital in Evanston with heat-related injuries, Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford said.

Both firefighters are in good condition, Langford said. The cause of the fire was under investigation Sunday, but did not appear suspicious, he added.

Windows were shattered and interior beams appeared to have crumbled inside the fieldhouse, which was constructed in 1929 and designed by Clarence Hatzfeld.

Seen by many neighbors as the hub of the Chicago Park District’s Indian Boundary Park, the fieldhouse was designated as a landmark in 2005, and hosts a variety of classes and performances.

“It’s an example of craftsmanship that you just don’t see anymore,” said Jasmyn Du Bois, 36, who lives in one of the apartment buildings on the park’s eastern border. “Everywhere you went in there, you thought: ‘This is gorgeous.’ ”

Du Bois said she first saw a single plume of smoke, but that single plume quickly turned into thick, billowing black smoke that seemed to engulf the entire park.

By her count, at least eight fire engines were on the scene. Through the thick smoke, she said she saw maybe 15 firefighters enter the building at one point.

The smoke started to clear by about 1:30 p.m., Du Bois said, and by 4 p.m., most of the fire crews had left.

Neighbors gathered just outside the taped-off perimeter surrounding the field house, and several talked of the interior’s Native-American motif, an homage to the park’s location as the former territorial boundary between the U.S. government and Pottawattomie Indians.

“It hurts,” Du Bois said, her eyes focused on the damage before her. “This place, it wasn’t just a building. It was a community.”

But just as community members banded together years ago to construct the park’s playground equipment, neighbors said they were ready to get started restoring the fieldhouse.

“This is a great institution in the neighborhood,” said Evelyn Asch, chairwoman of the West Rogers Park Community Organization, which had planned to hold a fundraiser in the fieldhouse Sunday evening. “As a group, we’ll do whatever it takes to get it up and running, and restored.”

Long-time neighborhood resident Mike Burns, 62, took part in the effort to build the park’s playground, and said drumming up neighborhood support for a rebuilding effort should not be difficult.

“This neighborhood is pretty strong,” he said. But, he added, some of the building’s details might be lost forever.

“This thing really was a gem,” he said, standing in rubble strewn several feet away from the fieldhouse. “This is a loss of a treasure.”